Word: novelization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Hardly what one would expect someone to be saying to Arthur Golden '78, the celebrated author of Memoirs of A Geisha, the novel that just out in paperback after spending 60 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List. When Golden incredulously asked his editor what had prompted such an epithet to come from her lips, she responded, "Well, you're walking through a hotel lobby talking on your cell phone about your movie deal...
Golden's debut novel, chronicling the lush andexotic life of a geisha in the Japan of the 30sand 40s, has been wildly successful. InMemoirs, Sayuri, an aging geisha recountsher youth spent in the Okiya, a cloisteredbrothel where women trained for the rigors of theGeisha art. Hatsumomo is the primadonna geisha ofthe Okiya, supporting a household of youngapprentices and aged ex-geishas. From the momentSayuri is sold into the Okiya Hatsumomorecognizes her as a challenge to her supremacy andspends the rest of the novel plotting Sayuri'sdemise...
After graduating from Harvard in 1978,concentrating in Japanese art history, Goldenearned a Master's in Japanese history at Columbiaand then worked in Tokyo. It was after his returnfrom Tokyo that Golden began writing a novel abouta Japanese friend. While researching the characterof his friend's mother, a retired geisha, Goldenfound he was writing about the wrong subject andswitched his focus completely. 750 pages went intothe trashcan, and he wrote 800 pages about 35years in the life of a geisha that were declared"dry." Golden then threw out another 750 pages, anact which he called "exhilarating," and then aftera week...
...creation of such a confident narrativevoice attests to Golden's diligence and skill as afiction writer. While Golden's name and the words"a novel" appear on the cover of Memoirs ofa Geisha, the novel begins with a translator'snote, convincingly signed by "Jakob Haarhuis,Arnold Rusoff Professor of Japanese History, NewYork University." The story begins from there asthe ever hopeful, bitterly realistic voice ofSayuri takes over, and the reader finds himself sotaken by the enveloping prose, quietly blendingthe "superlative degree of comparison" present inDickens's opening in A Tale of Two Citieswith the seducing party-haze of wealth...
...turns out, both Rusoff and Goldenhave gotten far more than their 15 minutes offame, and with the huge popular appeal of thenovel--ranging from Madonna to local book clubs toGaultier--one can hardly help wondering what it isabout this 428 page novel that has generated sucha fervor. The answer is simple, and Golden himselfarticulated it best when he said "I read because Iwant to live other lives."Photo Courtesy of Vintage BooksThe man behind the madness: Arthur Golden...